Workers' rights at the financially-strapped Chinese Automobile Corporation (CAC, 跨部會重大勞資協調會報) will be protected, the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs (CLA, 勞委會) said yesterday.
Additionally, CAC managers -- already under indictment for illegally holding company assets -- will be barred from leaving the country, and the government will help meet workers' legal expenses.
However, CAC workers said they suspected the statements were mere lip-service and were worried unpaid salaries and pensions would not be returned before the Chinese New Year.
The Council yesterday opened negotiations between CAC management and workers over the labor dispute, with 300 union members demonstrating outside the Council's headquarters.
Union representatives said the company still owes around 1,600 workers more than two months' wages, along with workers' pensions, amounting to NT$60 million.
CAC's financial crisis broke out in January 1998, when Chang Chao-hsiang (張朝翔) and his brother, Chang Chao-liang (張朝喨), the company's CEO and deputy CEO respectively, allegedly seized more than NT$25.2 billion from the company, causing a series of settlement defaults. The pair were indicted at the beginning of last year.
The Taipei County bureau of labor affairs has already held four meetings, all of which failed to reach a settlement.
Officials from the justice, finance and economics ministries joined yesterday's negotiations.
Chang Chang-chih (
First, he said, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) would send CAC research data to the council within seven days for further evaluation of a corporate reorganization that has been proposed by CAC management.
Second, Chang said, all the shareholders, including the Chang brothers and their father, Chang Chien-an (
Responding to workers' demands, Chang said payments the company owed its workers would be incorporated into the company's restructuring. "Their demands will be prioritized," Chang said.
Many of the demonstrators outside, however, said the conclusions were a "bad check." Kuo Tien-hua (
"Company officials said they would begin restructuring 14 months ago, but they have been putting it off and shirking their responsibility. And so far, the government has done nothing to ensure our legal rights," he said.
"The finance ministry was able to investigate the James Soong money scandal within a short time, but 14 months has passed for us -- why is it still unable to check into the CAC's finances?" asked another union official.
CLA officials appeared to verify the worries of the employees, by saying if the CAC was bankrupt and all its assets were pledged to its creditors, all profits made after restructuring would go to creditors.
"Unless the MOF can ask the banks to nullify the company's bankruptcy, the employees will get nothing but a creditors' certificate," the official said.
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